September 16, 2010

Some time ago I wrote a post here on the images displayed in tvs in television ads from the 1950's as small windows into societal attractions and expectations. My thinking was that the exploding television industry would try to lure buyers with the seductive promises of these pictures, that seeing them displayed would entice people to buy the televisions so that they could see them at home. Or perhaps not–perhaps they were only placeholders so that the screen wouldn’t be dark and blank, though I feel otherwise. The selection of these images tells us a tiny bit of something about the working person’s dreams–I admit it’s a slippery slope and not a blunt diagnostic tool, but it is interesting.

So too with Christmas advertising. Looking for something else in a volume of LIFE magazine for 1954 (an article on workers using irradiated paint to apply highlights to glow-in-the-dark wristwatches) I was struck by the goods being advertised for Christmas gift-giving. Pro-phyl-Ac-Tic Brush Company was selling brushes, and Santa was pushing Playtex pillows and Hoover vacuums and irons and MEAT and waffle makers.

And then there was the automatic lit-cigarette dispenser for the automobile. Push a button–out rolls a burning ciggie. The heated air and the rolled-up windows must’ve made for an extra-pleasurable experience for the girl sitting next to daddy.

But it was the pictures of Santa selling cigarettes as Christmas gifts that got me–again (this story on the worst Christmas advertisements appeared earlier in this blog). There were bunches of Santas selling smokes, including one de-bearded impostor selling Fatima cigarettes. There were bunches of other folks, too, trading in on the smoking bit–they were excitedly opening wrapped/ribboned gifts of boxes of smokes, or hanging packs on the tree, or kissers kissing with boxes of newly-gifted smokes in their hands behind their lover’s neck. And of course there was Ronald Reagan, who 26 years later would sell his flat forehead and broad grin to the American people as presidential lumber. (He seems to be writing on the carton in this picture.)

And we’re not just talking Camels here. In four issues of LIFE prior to Christmas 1954, the following cigarettes were advertised in full-page placements, looming suggestions for expressions of a “smokey” (which would later read “coughy/spitting/deady” for many of the buyers and receivers) love: Old Gold, Lucky Strikes, Fatima, Camel, Pall Mall and Chesterfields; also included were Robert Burns and White Owl cigars, plus Keywood pipes. More often than not, each one of these products was featured in each of these four issues of LIFE.

LIFE was running about 175 pages per weekly issue at the time, so the full page ads for cigarettes and alcohol were actually eating up a bit of total display space per issue.

What about the “regular” stuff? There were surprisingly few toys, and so far as I can tell only two big ads for Schwinn bicycles. The 3/4-page/full page ads featured Whtiman Chocolates, toasters, light bulbs, cologne, televisions, Samsonite luggage, NUCOR oleomargarine, fountain pens, Zipo lighters, razors, meat, Van Heusen shirt, socks, lingerie, Green Giant peas, Coke, A & P coffee, refrigerators, pillows, Kodak cameras, cedar chests, washing machines, irons (“to show her you love her”), waffle irons, Hoover vacuums (“to show her you care”), and a couple of ads for Plymouths and Fords.

So. Pretty utilitarian stuff, overall: buy mother chocolate, margarine, a lady razor, green peas, meat, coffee, pillows, lingerie, washing machine, and an iron; maybe a refrigerator if you had the extra cash, and an assortment of oils and perfumes for later on, when she was not working. Dad gets cologne, a tv, fountain pens, a shirt, a tie, a high-beam spotlight for the Ford, simonize, some socks, and maybe a car for the family. There was a two-page, double-page spread for kids’ toys, all o fit wrapped up in to display, showing 40 or so things from Santa, but in general the images for goods for children was very slim. Maybe everyone just knew to go to the toy store, or Macy’s toy department, or Gimbel’s, or Wanamaker’s. But at least for this year, in this magazine, the ads for children were very slim.

What does all of this say? Was there little money for working class fancies for Christmas in 1954? I guess this all depends upon what you compare it to–slated against ads from the 1902's, the selection looks pretty good; against the turn-of-the-century, better yet. I’m not sure how early “Christmas advertising” gets,. But I have a feeling that it doesn’t precede Thomas Nast’s Santa by very much at all–seems to me that by 1954, real advertising for Christmas was only a couple of decades old; overall, it seems that advertising Christmas purchases is a definite 20th century invention.That said, all of this looks like a nearly-null set compared to now, when seemingly everything and anything can be purchased at any time, especially around the Holiday season. I wonder how this sort of consumerism can be maintained? There’s always a fallout in super-saturated solutions, and it seems that we must be near that point. Then again, the folks in 1954 might’ve been saying the same exact thing.